DILLINGER

A fusion of two Canadian provinces.

In the early/mid '70's, there was on one side of the Maple Leaf, the hard rock scene in Toronto, Ont. throwing out bands like Rush, Triumph, A Foot In Coldwater, Moxy, Thundermug and on the flip side, prog and folk was blowing strong in Montreal, P.Q. with Maneige, Harmonium, Sloche propelling the movement. Yet another contrast in the differences between two cultural, lingual and political environments at that time in Canada.

Brothers, Jacques and Robert Harrison left the province of Quebec and moved to Toronto and formed Dillinger in 1973, named after the infamous Indiana bank robber, John Dillinger. Torontonians, guitarist Paul Cockburn and drummer Terry Bramhall were recruited and the Harrison's brought their proggy influences from Quebec with Jacques' multi-instrumental talents on the flute, sax, Moog, organ as well as taking on the lead vocals and handling most of the song writing with his brother, Robert on percussions. The band was signed to the small independent Canadian label, Daffodil Records and their self-titled debut was released in 1974. The organ and guitars drive the basis of the music with melodic and harmony vocals shifting between a bluesy hard rock and complex jazzy progressive passages provided by the flute, sax and the keys of Jacques Harrison.

The album opens up with, "People", probably the best track on the album with a honking saxophone, howling guitars and a punchy organ with powerful vocals. A growling guitar solo is followed by a Focus-like flute instrumental interplay with a hammering keyboard line. The first half of "City Man" is more in the realm of Deep Purple Mk. II but then abruptly and somewhat awkwardly takes on a jazzy groove foundation with a searing sax solo. The band's cover of "Nature's Way" from the psychedelic classic, 'Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus' by Spirit is excellent. The tempo is slowed down compared to the original but the addition of a trumpet/trombone (I'm not sure which as I don't have a Ph.D. in musicology) would of have been something that Spirit well might of incorporated as they on occasion would implement horns on some of their jazz-rock tracks. The addition of the female background/harmony vocalists adds a surgary semblance but isn't too sunshine bright. The 17+ minute epic, "Live And Return" starts out very jazzy with Jacques Harrison's lead vocals supported again by the background harmony vocalists may well be over-done/bearing. The majority of the song is an instrumental progressive jazz/blues/hard rock jam (Vanilla Fudge/Iron Butterfly/ELP/Santana fusion) and around the 11:30 minute mark, unexpectedly and somewhat dischording, a drum solo enters into the fray and travels for almost four minutes reminescent of ELP/Carl Palmer's, "Tank" spotlight. A wild but long-winded "suite".

On their next album, "Don't Lie To The Band", released in 1976 and with the help of Rush producer, Terry Brown, the band tightened up their sound and style to more of a hard rock direction though still slanted with progressive passages with some of the tracks in the 8 - 9 minute range allowed the members, most notably Jacques Harrison to showcase his talents. In 1977 the band had some personnel changes and went under the name of 'The Hunt' and released their self-titled debut. A fantastic hard rock album but the prog tendencies were almost nonexistent.

Semi-prog Canadian act formed in 1973 by two brothers, multi-instrumentalist Jacques Harrison and drummer Robert Harrison (later to perform with Offenbach), both coming from the Quebec area.The line-up was completed with guitarist Paul Cockburn and bassist Terry Bramhall, the band soon signed with Daffodil Records and released their self-titled debut in 1974, re-issued in 1998 in CD format by Unidisc.

The album opens with ''People'' in a very promising Classic Prog start, featuring a style split between complex Prog and organ-based Hard Prog with fiery guitar work, excellent organ runs and some beautiful symphonic-inclined flutes towards the end.GENESIS, VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR, YES AND JETHRO TULL-influences are more than obvious in this very good composition.However the rest of the album never reaches this level.''City main'' is a commercial Hard Rock tune with decent guitar leads, only saved by a jazzy-influenced middle part.In a very short effort of just over 30 minutes, the cover of the classic Spririt track ''Nature's way'' (from the album ''Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus'') can only be regarded as lack of inspiration.Dillinger added a wind section to this cover, making it quite personal, but the idea of covering a track in such a short release can't be highlighted.The band closed the debut with the 17-min. ''Live and Return''.The ''Live'' part is decent guitar-based Fusion blended with classic Heavy Rock mannerisms and supporting organs with a somewhat dated sound and uninteresting multi-vocal parts, while ''Return'' opens with an organ jamming, soon to be followed by a totally needless and uninspirational long drum-solo, lasting over 3 minutes.

I wish the band would have kept the masterful sound of the opening track throughout the release, but I guess nobody (almost) is perfect.Mediocre album in general, where ''People'' shines through by far.Recommended only if you run over a cheap copy...2.5 stars.

Dill's first album is a bit half-baked, as it's made of almost an EP worth of enjoyable album and some really embarrasing stuff. The A-side's first two tracks are interesting heavy-rock-prog (one with a jazzy overtone), but it is followed by an embarrassingly bad cover-version od Spirit's Nature's Way. Indeed the band uses the Vanilla Fudge treatment of slowing down the tempo of a great tune, but they totally miss the target as the result almost insults the original. And that's about it for the a-side, clocking around the quarter hour.

The flipside is made of a side-long track that seems to hesitate between studio and live, and if the first 12 minutes are fine, there is a boooooooring drum solo that totally ruins the tracks, though it resumes with a final 90 seconds band effort.

Please note that their next (dumbly titled) album, Dillinger will do much better with a steaming-hot pure progressive rock album, though they will repeat their blunder of massacring the Beatles' Taxman with the same Fudge treatment, though I never enjoyed that track nearly as much as Spirit's anthem. Please start with their second album, then you feel like it, this one will offer a half-album of good heavy prog.